Jomo Kenyatta International Airport Runway Repairs Delays Flights

The stark reality of past failures to look and plan ahead in good time has once again come home to roost for the Kenya Airports Authority and all the airlines operating from Jomo Kenyatta International Airport last night, when due to urgent repairs and maintenance of runway and taxiway lighting, a significant number of flights were delayed. The aviation fraternity has for long demanded that East Africa’s most important airport requires a second runway so that traffic can continue to arrive and depart in case of an incident on one runway.

Jomo Kenyatta International Airport

A regular aviation source from Nairobi said: ‘They told us in advance to reschedule flights during the closure. It seems wiring needed replacement or had to be maintained but with a second runway we would not have had a total closure of Nairobi. We have been telling that to KAA for years but their top ranks just prance about trying to be important. They should be relevant – if they had had the competence to understand issues, we would have a second runway by now and the expansion of the airport would have been finished a year ago. Government should stop putting politicians into such places and employ professionals’.

It was confirmed that a NOTAM, aka notice to airmen, had been issued in advance allowing airlines both inbound and outbound to delay arrivals and departures, though at a cost of annoying passengers and having some of them miss their connecting flights and needing rebooking by their airlines to reach their final destinations.

KAA has announced that a second runway would be constructed but the completion of this crucial piece of new infrastructure may well still take several years. Watch this space for regular updates from the Eastern African aviation scene. 

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